Larry Dale Keeling Is "Having Trouble Conjuring Up Any Happy Ending" To Budget Impasse. Who Can Blame Him?
Keeling: Little reason to be optimistic about a budget compromise
By Larry Dale Keeling
FRANKFORT — Heaven forbid I should ever give readers a reason to think I'm a pessimist. (Pause while the laughter subsides.) But I'm having trouble conjuring up any happy ending to the ongoing schoolyard taunting match in the state Capitol.
Neither of the lead taunters has distinguished himself lately, unless missteps carry some mark of distinction.
Gov. Steve Beshear's first miscue was issuing the call for a special session the day the Senate gaveled in for the 30th and final day of the 2011 regular session.
Yes, the Senate action assured the regular session would end with no agreement on a fix for this year's Medicaid budget. And yes, with a 35 percent reduction in reimbursement rates set to go into effect April 1 in the absence of a fix, the Beshear administration needed to know quickly whether or not the Democratic House and Republican Senate could come to terms.
Still, it would have been wiser for Beshear to simply announce the reimbursement reductions, sit back for a week or so and let Medicaid providers — facing three months of financial disaster — keep lawmakers' phones ringing 24/7, ginning up pressure for the House and Senate to agree on a budgetary fix.
Beshear held the advantage in this dust-up. His plan had enough bipartisan support in the House to pass on an 80-19 vote. And the health care providers whose pocketbooks would take a beating from April 1 through June 30 represent a Republican constituency Senate President David Williams can't afford to alienate without some risk to his own gubernatorial ambitions.
Beshear, on the other hand, could afford to wait for pressure to build on lawmakers. And with an agreed fix in hand, any special session he called could have been over in the minimum five days it takes a bill to move through both chambers of the General Assembly.
As it is, this special session will last a minimum of eight legislative days, at a cost of about $63,500 a day. It will last a minimum of 10 days in terms of legislative pay, since lawmakers are on the clock seven days a week when in session. And since he called it without an agreed fix, Beshear bears some of the blame for its cost.
Beshear's second miscue was spending the first two days of the special session on puddle-jumping flights around the state to tout his proposed budget fix and criticize Williams' obstructionism at a series of press conferences. In a gubernatorial election year, with Williams as his likely Republican opponent, this looked way too much like campaigning at public expense.
Williams was quick to call him on it Monday. In the process, though, he made himself look a little bit like Tweedledum to Beshear's Tweedledee by bashing Beshear's press tour during — wait for it — his own press conference held in his Capitol Annex Senate president's office.
Now, this didn't rise to the level of Beshear's Magical Medicaid Tour. But if you're going to bash an opponent for campaigning on the taxpayers' dime, you might want to find a location other than the office provided to you by the taxpayers' dime before you start bashing.
When it comes to hypocrisy, though, Williams faces far bigger problems than his Monday press conference created. Weeks into this dispute, his "take no prisoners" insistence on across-the-board spending cuts in exchange for a Medicaid fix may now have him boxed in a corner he can't escape without looking both hypocritical and weak.
Therein lies my difficulty in conjuring up a happy ending for this debacle.
Even if House Democrats and Republicans work out a compromise acceptable to virtually everyone in that chamber, it would still be a compromise. At this point in the show Williams has staged for the Tea Party faithful, he might equate compromising on spending cuts with having a stake driven through the heart of his gubernatorial ambitions — which would be a decidedly unhappy ending for him. And I'm not optimistic he'll go there.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/03/20/1678320/little-reason-to-be-optimistic.html#ixzz1HFhJRtkg
By Larry Dale Keeling
FRANKFORT — Heaven forbid I should ever give readers a reason to think I'm a pessimist. (Pause while the laughter subsides.) But I'm having trouble conjuring up any happy ending to the ongoing schoolyard taunting match in the state Capitol.
Neither of the lead taunters has distinguished himself lately, unless missteps carry some mark of distinction.
Gov. Steve Beshear's first miscue was issuing the call for a special session the day the Senate gaveled in for the 30th and final day of the 2011 regular session.
Yes, the Senate action assured the regular session would end with no agreement on a fix for this year's Medicaid budget. And yes, with a 35 percent reduction in reimbursement rates set to go into effect April 1 in the absence of a fix, the Beshear administration needed to know quickly whether or not the Democratic House and Republican Senate could come to terms.
Still, it would have been wiser for Beshear to simply announce the reimbursement reductions, sit back for a week or so and let Medicaid providers — facing three months of financial disaster — keep lawmakers' phones ringing 24/7, ginning up pressure for the House and Senate to agree on a budgetary fix.
Beshear held the advantage in this dust-up. His plan had enough bipartisan support in the House to pass on an 80-19 vote. And the health care providers whose pocketbooks would take a beating from April 1 through June 30 represent a Republican constituency Senate President David Williams can't afford to alienate without some risk to his own gubernatorial ambitions.
Beshear, on the other hand, could afford to wait for pressure to build on lawmakers. And with an agreed fix in hand, any special session he called could have been over in the minimum five days it takes a bill to move through both chambers of the General Assembly.
As it is, this special session will last a minimum of eight legislative days, at a cost of about $63,500 a day. It will last a minimum of 10 days in terms of legislative pay, since lawmakers are on the clock seven days a week when in session. And since he called it without an agreed fix, Beshear bears some of the blame for its cost.
Beshear's second miscue was spending the first two days of the special session on puddle-jumping flights around the state to tout his proposed budget fix and criticize Williams' obstructionism at a series of press conferences. In a gubernatorial election year, with Williams as his likely Republican opponent, this looked way too much like campaigning at public expense.
Williams was quick to call him on it Monday. In the process, though, he made himself look a little bit like Tweedledum to Beshear's Tweedledee by bashing Beshear's press tour during — wait for it — his own press conference held in his Capitol Annex Senate president's office.
Now, this didn't rise to the level of Beshear's Magical Medicaid Tour. But if you're going to bash an opponent for campaigning on the taxpayers' dime, you might want to find a location other than the office provided to you by the taxpayers' dime before you start bashing.
When it comes to hypocrisy, though, Williams faces far bigger problems than his Monday press conference created. Weeks into this dispute, his "take no prisoners" insistence on across-the-board spending cuts in exchange for a Medicaid fix may now have him boxed in a corner he can't escape without looking both hypocritical and weak.
Therein lies my difficulty in conjuring up a happy ending for this debacle.
Even if House Democrats and Republicans work out a compromise acceptable to virtually everyone in that chamber, it would still be a compromise. At this point in the show Williams has staged for the Tea Party faithful, he might equate compromising on spending cuts with having a stake driven through the heart of his gubernatorial ambitions — which would be a decidedly unhappy ending for him. And I'm not optimistic he'll go there.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/03/20/1678320/little-reason-to-be-optimistic.html#ixzz1HFhJRtkg
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